The Christian Music Thread Genre • Page 93

I definitely find Anberlin's more recent stuff off-putting. Honestly no idea why they get a pass when similar bands don't. I don't think the entire band shares the same views as Stephen.

 

Yeah, Relient K quietly pulled their feature as soon as all the stuff with Seth came to light.

As far as Anberlin is concerned, oy I don’t know. I can’t speak for everyone so I think I can only say that it comes down to personal preference I suppose. Anberlin’s a tough one for me too. I remember buying Blueprints for the Black Market at the local Christian bookstore when it first came out and they had one of those “if you like this secular artist then you’ll LOVE…” signs next to it and the comparison was Third Eye Blind lol. I jammed that album the whole way home and fell in love right away. I went to see them in concert with Further Seems Forever and my friend and I got to meet Stephen after he finished their set. He’d come out into the crowd to watch FSF play along with the rest of us, which is funny to think about now. Not a soul even knew who Anberlin even were let alone Stephen Christian. We told him we were actually really there to see Anberlin and he looked at us totally flummoxed and said “What? Seriously? Why?”

He was really humble and sincere and I was all in after that. After Never Take Friendship Personal released, I was in that very dark, lonely place in my life and Paper Thin Hymn hit me hard. My older sister knew something was going on with me so for my birthday she took me to see them play with Hawthorne Heights. I went out into the mosh pit during Hawthorne’s set and was just…not in a good place. I got into a shoving match with one of the kids there and he sucker punched me in the nose and I fell over. I walked out into the hallway past my sister with my nose gushing blood and she asked if I was okay. She told me later that when I turned to look at her and say “I’m fine” that I looked absolutely dead behind my eyes and that she was so worried about me. So I go into the bathroom, clean myself up, stare in the mirror hating the person looking back, and then go back out into the hallway holding the bloody paper towel against my nose. I turned to see a crowd of kids around Stephen and stared at him remembering the person I’d been just a few short years ago when I’d met him. He looks up, sees me standing there, and I will never forget the way his face sort of dropped like he was looking right through me and just knew something was wrong. He lifted his hand and gave me a little wave and for a moment I wondered if maybe he remembered me. I didn’t have it in me so I just walked away and I could feel him watching me.

A year later I was in a completely different place. I had just started dating the girl who would become my wife and was driving on my way to my first internship listening to Cities for the first time. When I got to “Hello Alone” I choked back tears thinking it was written about people like me.

Anberlin meant a lot to me over the years, but admittedly I began to fall off around the time I started seeing and hearing stuff about his church and some of his bothersome posts. I’d listen to new songs and admit that absolutely it was all technically just as great as ever, but the stuff that bothered me wouldn’t get out of my head and impacted the way I heard the lyrics and his voice in general. So I just…stopped listening…but it sucked. And they came back stronger than ever after their breakup and it still sucked because I’m so conflicted. I think a lot of people have those types of attachments with Anberlin and it’s harder to create distance from certain artists over others because some things can be viewed as worse than others and some things can be more easily ignored for the time being so, yeah, right back where I started where it ultimately comes down to personal preference I guess. I feel the way I do, but I don’t expect everyone else to agree and I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes either because it’s a complicated, nuanced subject and at some point I just throw up my hands and say “I dunno, man.”

 

Thank you so much for all of this, it has been extremely validating knowing that I wasn’t the only one! Definitely shows me that the doctrine is the problem not me.

it sounds like you have a similar partner to me and that makes me happy for you! RE: denominations, YES that’s exactly it! It’s permanently engrained in my mind basically that there is like a Catholic-Protestant scale where Catholicism is at one end and Baptist at the other and it being treated as some superiority type thing. Methodists being essentially too left/liberal just makes me lol.

I’m sorry your Dad is still stuck in his ways and resistant to change/differing opinions, that really sucks to hear. Fortunately for me, my Dad seemingly is much less strict than he used to be and it’s much less shoved down my throat as it was earlier in my childhood.

 

Shouts out to Five Iron. My older brother's friend gave him a burned copy of Proof That The Youth Are Revolting and he didn't like it and left it laying around and I found it. That was the first band I heard that wasn't on the radio and turned my world upside down.

 

What’s wrong with your older brother? Haha. That album was my first exposure to FIF and I was hooked after hearing Reese scream on One Girl Army. Couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

 

Yeah he sucks. Thank god for his friend though.

 

Ok, it’s me mister “I don’t have social media” again, so what happened with anberlin? I know Stephen is a church leader and made a worship album but has he had some weirdo beliefs?

 

Yes! That live album was also my introduction to the band as well! I couldn’t believe what my young ears were hearing and no one else in my family but me understood it. I also had this 5 Minute Walk compilation with Dandelion and Every New Day on it so those were some of the first studio recordings I heard from them, which is a pretty great start.

 

Never really gotten into FIF so guess that’s what I’m listening to today

 

Weirdo beliefs? Probably not. They're pretty common. He seems to be following a lot of mainstream, right-wing, conservative evangelical stuff.

 

I truly believe that Five Iron Frenzy and mewithoutYou were the first turning points for me away from mainstream evangelism and more social justice-oriented faith.

 

Yap. FIF always featured a song on every album about atrocities committed against Native Americans and I never heard any other Christian artist address that the way they did. Absolutely had a hand in radicalizing me. If anyone is familiar with Trey Pearson, he’s the former lead singer of Everyday Sunday and came out as gay back in 2016. That summer he was supposed to be one of the headliners at Furnace Fest, but then that weekend a bunch of festival staff threatened to walk if the guy running it let Trey play. So the guy running it had no choice because they forced his hand last minute. FIF were one of the headliners and during Every New Day, they asked Trey to come on stage and sing. Reese introduced him by saying, “This is our friend Trey Pearson. We love him and we’re glad he’s here.” That made my heart swell.

 

So I listened to FIF what are some standout/best/favorite tracks and or albums?

 

Every New Day was always a classic (I think they closed their ‘final’ show back in the day with that - obviously they got back together now).

Their newest album is worth a listen. Love the political lyrics - they don’t hold back.

 

If I were to start from the beginning and work my way forward from each album I’d probably go:

1.) Upbeats and Beatdowns

The Old West - the fact that this is their first song on their first album tells you everything you need to know about them right off the bat. The fact that these lyrics from 1997 are still insanely relevant today is incredibly sad. I remember sitting in my room with my headphones on as a teenager and just letting the rage simmer inside of me and knowing I was wholly separate from my family.

Where Zero Meets 15
Cool Enough For You
Anthem
Beautiful America
Everywhere I Go
A Flowery Song

2.) Quantity is Job 1

All That is Good
Dandelions - an absolute essential
One Girl Army - listening to a feminist anthem as a Christian teen was revolutionary

3.) Our Newest Album Ever

Handbook for the Sellout
Superpowers
Suckerpunch
Blue Comb ‘78 - The turn this one takes near the end hit me so hard amidst my parents’ separation and I’ve always loved this song ever since.
Oh, Canada
Every New Day - This one is an absolute, all time, 100%, show closing, must listen. A classic and fan favorite to this day.

4.) All the Hype That Money Can Buy

The Greatest Story Ever Told
Me Oh My
The Phantom Mullet - I love this one and I don’t care lol
Fahrenheit - Again, listening to a Christian band sing about their regret over their own internalized homophobia as a young teen was just something you didn’t hear anywhere else.
Four-Fifty-One
All the Hype
A New Hope - Written post-Columbine and still so sadly relevant
World Without End

5.) Five Iron Frenzy 2: Electric Boogaloo

Far, Far Away
You Can’t Handle This
Farsighted - This song and Far, Far Away were two of my favorite variations of their push toward more of a poprock sound that a lot of folks complained about around that time.
Spartan - Took me a while to realize why this one stuck out to me at the time until, as I got older, I realized “oh he’s singing about depression whelp”. The lyrics:
He said “Love endures all things”/
and it hurts to think it’s true/
did it nail Him to a cross/
did it crucify Him too?/

…always made me want to scream.

The Day We Killed - A hardcore turn mid album about, again, racism and genocide
Juggernaut - Again, dealing with what I was dealing with at the time, these songs meant so much to me and I wore the disc out listening to it.
Car - This one’s written about the sudden death of one of the band member’s (Leanor Ortega) brother and it’s a heartbreaker.
Eulogy

I could probably end up including more songs from this one because I loved the album so much. You’ve got Blue Mix criticizing the record industry and how it views fans as dollar signs, and Vultures which is about commercialism and capitalism destroying a world on the verge of revolution and boy if that doesn’t radicalize you as a young person…

6.) The End Is Here - This was their “final” album at the time when they broke up in 2004 before reuniting nearly a decade later. It’s fantastic.

Cannonball
So Far, So Bad
New Years Eve
American Kryptonite
It Was Beautiful
Farewell to Arms
Anchors Away
On Distant Shores - A beautiful album closer, summation of their journey as a band, and a rousing final return to their most beloved song in the closing moments.

My favorite songs on this one are mostly their self reflective, farewell songs.

7.) Engine of a Million Plots

Against a Sea of Troubles - To open their return album a decade later with a song about faith crisis resonated heavily with me.
So Far
Zen and the Art of Xenophobia - Oh, I’m thinking they’re back.
We Own the Skies
I Am Jack’s Smirking Revenge
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night - This was the first song released from the album and such a cool return call to arms
Blizzards & Bygones - Holy hell, to start the album with a song about faith struggle and then circle back at the end with a closing song about losing your faith is a choice. This one was written by Scott about having left the faith and sometimes missing it. The band chose to keep him in the band despite being an atheist now because he’s their friend and they love him and that’s everything Five Iron Frenzy embodies right there. This is one of my absolute favorite songs from FIF for so very many reasons.

8.) Between Pavement & Stars EP
Boomerang - Featuring the lyrics:
If God is love, you've got it wrong,
Waving all your placards and flags,
The very fact that you're alive
Says God must also love douchebags.“ Hahaha.
Blizzards & Bygones (All Frost No Thaw Version) - A slowed down version with Scott on lead. Just beautiful and anguished.
To Astoria - Hello Dropkick Murphys
Between the Pavement and Stars

9.) Until This Shakes Apart

In Through The Out Door - An album opener about America putting kids in cages and closing the borders. FIF as ever.
Lonesome for Her Heroes - A song about the losing battle of class warfare and the failure to make any changes post-Columbine over twenty years later. This theme only carries on through what is their most political album to date.
So We Sing - First single released and features the line “Let’s build a fire from our broken pasts, and tell all the grownups they can kiss our ass” is also quite the choice.
Bullfight for an Empty Ring
Renegades
Tyrannis
One Heart Hypnosis
While Supplies Last - This one contains another variation of the band cursing and you can really feel their anger at their fellow “Christians” over, well, everything.
Huerfano - I just love all of their album closers lol

And this doesn’t even include their side projects like Brave Saint Saturn, the short lived Roper, Yellow Second, The Fast Feeling, etc.

 

I should also note I left out (for the most part) their sillier songs for the more heavily thematic stuff, but that doesn’t mean those songs aren’t gems either. Arnold & Willis & Mr. Drumond, The Untimely Death of Brad, Where is Micah, the aforementioned The Phantom Mullet, You Probably Shouldn’t Move Here, I Still Like Larry, Pre-Ex Girlfriend, At Least I’m Not Like All Those Other Old Guys, Wizard Needs Food Badly, That’s How The Story Ends, Battle Dancing Unicorns With Glitter, Homelessly Devoted To You, etc., all great stuff.

 

Lets not sleep on their live album!

 

The live album (assuming they only have 1) is all I’ve listened to so far.

A New Hope
Blue Comb
Oh, Canada
Every New Day

were the ones that stood out to me on first listen

 

I wish the End is Near/Here was on Spotify.

 

That album, from what I understand, is caught in a strange limbo with their old label and the guy who ran it. The band hasn’t come out directly and said why, afaik. But it seems like it’s owned by the label guy and they’ve been unable to get the rights to it to do anything with it (streaming/vinyl), despite publicly saying they have a great relationship with the guy and always have. I dunno, it’s confusing and weird. And also why I appreciate having the CD version of it.

 

They actually have two, since they recorded their “last” show.

Proof that the Youth are Revolting

The End is Here.

 

FIF were an absolute blast at FF last year.

 

Proof is the one I listened to.

listened to the newest album today too. Definitely need more listens it’s pretty dense

 

Ran through this at 5:30 this morning. Underrated.

 

Definitely one of the better Christcore bands of that era. Always a good listen at 5:30AM.